Reproducing apparatus and server system providing additional information therefor

ABSTRACT

A reproduction apparatus and a server system to provide additional information, the reproduction apparatus includes an identifier generator to generate the identifier of the contents, a network connector, and a controller to transmit the identifier generated by the identifier generator to a server system providing the additional information through the network connector, and to receive the additional information provided from the server system through the network connector.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application claims the benefit of Korean Application No.2001-12444, filed Mar. 10, 2001, in the Korean Industrial PropertyOffice, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] 1. Field of the Invention

[0003] The present invention relates to a reproduction apparatus and aserver system providing additional information, and more particularly,to a reproduction apparatus to read contents from storage media and toreproduce the read contents and a server system providing additionalinformation that is connected to the reproduction apparatus through anetwork.

[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0005] Digital storage media such as CDS and DVDs, in which variouscontents such as audio and video information are recorded, are widelyused. In particular, audio contents or video contents are recorded onCD-ROMs, DVD-audio, and DVD-videos, and the CD-ROMs, the DVD-audio, andthe DVD-videos are then sold.

[0006] There are various additional information related to the audiocontents or the video contents. For example, in the case of musicvideos, additional information could include the words of the songs,personal information items on the singers, contents of recentactivities, and other hit songs of a similar genre. However, when a userdesires to know such additional information, the user must access othermedia.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] To solve the above and other problems, it is an object of thepresent invention to provide a server system that provides additionalinformation on contents recorded on recording media such as CD-ROMs,DVD-audio, and DVD-videos through a network, and a reproductionapparatus to reproduce the recording media and receive the additionalinformation.

[0008] It is another object of the present invention to provide a serversystem providing additional information that provides and receives amost recent of the additional information on the contents recorded inthe recording media such as the CD-ROMs, the DVD-audio, and DVD-videosthrough a network, and a reproduction apparatus therefor.

[0009] Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be setforth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will beobvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of theinvention.

[0010] To achieve the above and other objects, a reproduction apparatusto reproduce contents according to an embodiment of the presentinvention that includes an identifier generator to generate theidentifier of the contents, a network connector and a controller totransmit the identifier generated by the identifier generator to aserver system providing additional information through the networkconnector and to receive the additional information provided from theserver system providing the additional information through the networkconnector.

[0011] According to an aspect of the present invention, the reproductionapparatus includes a reading unit to read data from storage media, inwhich the contents are stored.

[0012] According to another aspect of the present invention, theidentifier generator receives an International Standard Recording Code(ISRC) read from the storage media by the reading unit and provides theISRC as the identifier to the controller.

[0013] According to a further aspect of the present invention, thecontroller includes a browser that transmits the identifier to a serverinstalled in the additional information service server system, receivesadditional information provided from the server, and displays theadditional information.

[0014] According to a yet further aspect of the present invention, thereproduction apparatus further comprises a reading unit to read thecontents from the recording media on which the contents are stored and areproducer to reproduce contents read by the reading unit.

[0015] According to a still further aspect of the present invention, thereproducer further includes a decoder to decode read contents, a speakerto receive audio data output from the decoder and to deliver sound, anda display apparatus to receive video data output from the decoder and todisplay images.

[0016] According to another embodiment of the present invention, aserver system that includes an additional information database to storeadditional information corresponding to a plurality of contents, and aserver to receive an identifier with respect to predetermined contentsfrom a reproduction apparatus that reproduces the contents, to receivethe additional information corresponding to the identifier from theadditional information data base, and to transmit the additionalinformation to the reproduction apparatus.

[0017] According to an aspect of the present invention, the contentsinclude an International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) and, the serverreceives the ISRC as the identifier, receives additional informationmapped to the ISRC from the additional information data base, andtransmits the additional information to the reproduction apparatus.

[0018] According to another aspect of the present invention, thereproduction apparatus preferably includes an identifier generator togenerate the identifier of the contents, a network connector, and acontroller to transmit the identifier generated by the identifiergenerator to a server system providing additional information throughthe network connector, to receive the additional information providedfrom the additional information service server system through thenetwork connector, and to display the additional information.

[0019] According to a yet further aspect of the present invention, thereproduction apparatus further includes a reading unit to read data fromthe storage media on which the contents are stored.

[0020] According to a still further aspect of the present invention, theidentifier generator receives the ISRC read from the storage media andprovides the ISRC to the controller.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0021] The above and other objects and advantages of the presentinvention will become more apparent and more readily appreciated bydescribing in detail preferred embodiments thereof with reference to theattached drawings in which:

[0022]FIG. 1 schematically shows a reproduction apparatus and a serversystem providing additional information therefor according to anembodiment of the present invention;

[0023]FIGS. 2 and 3 show the structure of data stored in an additionalinformation database according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

[0024]FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a process performed by a reproductionapparatus to display the additional information; and

[0025]FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a process performed by a server system toprovide the additional information.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0026] Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferredembodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustratedin the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer tothe like elements throughout. The embodiments are described below inorder to explain the present invention by referring to the figures.

[0027]FIG. 1 schematically shows a reproduction apparatus and a serversystem providing additional information therefor according to anembodiment of the present invention. One or more contents #1, #2, . . ., and #N and an international standard recording code (ISRC) given tothe contents are recorded on an optical disc 1, which is a recordingmedium/storage medium according to the present embodiment. TheInternational Standard Recording Code (ISRC) code is an internationalstandard code used for distinguishing music, songs, music videos and isgiven by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The ISRCincludes a country code (2 characters), a copyright holder code (3characters), a year of recording code (2 characters), and a recordingnumber code (5 characters). The ISRC can be specific to each of thecontents (i.e., to each track) or to all of the contents (i.e., acollection of tracks). However, the ISRC is not specific to the physicalproduct and functions as an owner identification mechanism for theindividual content or collection of contents. While the ISRC isdisclosed as being the mechanism for indicating content ownership, it isunderstood that other mechanisms are available with regard to ownershipof the contents.

[0028] A reproduction apparatus 10 includes an identifier generator 11,a controller 12, a network connector 13, a reading unit 15, and areproducer 16. The identifier generator 11 generates an identifier withrespect to the contents recorded in a storage medium/recording mediumsuch as an optical disc 1. The identifier generated according to thepresent invention is the ISRC. The ISRC is read from the optical disc 1by the reading unit 15 and is provided to the identifier generator 11.The network connector 13, which is a connection interface to beconnected to the network, transmits predetermined information to thenetwork or receives predetermined information from the network. Abrowser 14, which is used to search for information stored in a serversystem providing additional information 100, is installed in thecontroller 12. The browser 14 is a user interface to read a file online.The browser 14 according to the present invention is a web browser thattransmits information to a server 102 installed in the server system100, and receives information from the server 102 to be described morefully later. The web browser 14 is a client program using an Internetprotocol, such as a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and a filetransfer protocol (FTP), in order to request material from a web server.It is understood that the network can be the Internet, a Large AreaNetwork (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Metropolitan Area Network(MAN), a public or private network of computers, a wireless network, orany interconnection of nodes by communication paths.

[0029] The reading unit 15 reads contents from the optical disc 1. Thereproducer 16 reproduces the contents read by the reading unit 15. Forthis, the reproducer 16 can further include a decoder 40 to decode theread contents, a speaker 20 to receive audio data output from thedecoder 40 and to deliver sound, and a display apparatus 30 to receivevideo data output from the decoder 40 and to display images. The speaker20 and/or display apparatus 30 may not be included in the reproducer 16and may be provided separately from the reproduction apparatus 10, ifnecessary.

[0030] The server system 100 includes an additional information database101 and the server 102. In addition to the contents recorded in theoptical disc 1, additional information on the various contents is storedin the additional information database 101 corresponding to the ISRC.Detailed description of additional information will be described later.

[0031] The server 102 receives the identifier on predetermined contentsfrom the reproduction apparatus 10, extracts the additional informationcorresponding to the identifier from the additional information database101, and transmits the additional information to the reproductionapparatus 10. The server 102, which is computer having a program encodedon a recordable medium to respond to requests from client programs suchas the browser 14 in a client/server model, is a server program toprovide web pages or files requested from the browser 14 when itaccesses the web server 102 according to the present embodiment.

[0032] The server 102 transmits information to the browser 14 andreceives information from the browser 14 through a “Cookie” file. TheCookie file is a text file stored in a client. In the presentembodiment, the Cookie file is prepared by the browser 14 and is stored.The browser 14 stores the Cookie file, which includes the ISRC in amemory (not shown) included in the controller 12. The Cookie file isusually stored in the directory used by the browser 14. To be morespecific, the browser 14 receives the identifier generated by theidentifier generator 11 (i.e., the ISRC) and stores the ISRC in theCookie file. The server 102 reads the Cookie file, identifies the ISRC,extracts the additional information corresponding to the ISRC from theadditional information database 101, and transmits the extractedadditional information to the reproduction apparatus 10. It isunderstood that the Cookie file can be a temporary file that is erasedafter the content is reproduced, or a more permanent file that reflectsa record of contents previously reproduced.

[0033]FIG. 2 shows the structure of data stored in the additionalinformation database 101 according to the preferred embodiment of thepresent invention. Referring to FIG. 2, a plurality of ISRC and theadditional information corresponding to the plurality of ISRC are storedin the additional information database 101. The additional informationdatabase 101 may be a relational database in the form of tables definedto access or reconstruct data by various methods. The additionalinformation database 101 can be a distribution type database, in whichdata items are distributed in various points on a network, or anobject-oriented data base, in which data defined by an object class anda sub class are consistent with each other.

[0034] Referring to FIG. 3, the additional information is prepared tocorrespond to the ISRC and includes one or more uniform resourcelocators (URL) as a plurality of additional contents file and/or linkinformation. The URL indicates the positions of resources, which can beaccessed on the Internet. The URL consists of protocol names to accessresources, domain names to distinguish specific computers on theInternet, and path names hierarchically to show the positions of files.

[0035] Processes of displaying additional information and a method ofproviding the additional information according to the present inventionwill now be described. It is generally understood that the controller 12and/or the server 102 is a general or special purpose computer thatimplements the process of displaying the information items usingcomputer software programs, which are stored on computer readable media.

[0036]FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the process performed by thereproduction apparatus 10 used to display the additional information.Referring to FIG. 4, when the optical disc 1 is inserted into thereproduction apparatus 10, the reading unit 15 reads the ISRC from theoptical disc 10 and transmits the ISRC to the identifier generator 11(operation 401). The identifier generator 11 transmits the ISRC to thecontroller 12, and the browser 14 stores the received ISRC in the Cookiefile (operation 402). When a user input is received in the controller12, the reading unit 15 reads corresponding contents and the reproducer16 reproduces the read contents (operation 403). When the user inputrequesting the additional information is received in the controller 12during the reproduction of the contents (operation 404), the browser 14is called and connected to the server system 100 through the networkconnector 13 (operation 405).

[0037] The browser 14 provides the ISRC stored in the Cookie file to theserver 102 of the server system 100 (operation 406). The browser 14receives the additional information provided from the server 102(operation 407), and displays the received additional information(operation 408).

[0038] It is understood that operation 403 can be omitted. Namely, theuser can request additional information on specific contents when thecontents are not being reproduced. In this case, when the user requeststhe additional information, the controller 12 (or the browser 14)displays menu screens with respect to all the contents recorded in theoptical disc 1. The additional information is provided by the browser 14providing the ISRC with respect to the selected contents to the server102 when the user selects the specific contents.

[0039]FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the process of the server system 100used to provide the additional information. Referring to FIG. 5, theserver 102 of the server system 100 is connected to the reproductionapparatus 10 through the network (operation 501). The server 102requests the ISRC from the browser 14 installed in the reproductionapparatus 10 and receives the ISRC (operation 502). The server 102extracts the additional information corresponding to the received ISRCfrom the additional information data base 101 on the basis of thereceived ISRC (operation 503) and transmits the extracted additionalinformation to the browser 14 (operation 504).

[0040] In the above embodiment, the identifier generator 11 receives theISRC read from the optical disc 1 by the reading unit 15. However, it isunderstood that the identifier generator 11 can be provided so as toreceive header information of the contents recorded in the optical disc1, and to generate a predetermined identifier on the basis of the headerinformation. Also, it is understood that the additional information maybe stored in the additional information database 101 to correspond tothe new identifier generated from the header information.

[0041] As mentioned above, according to the present invention, a serversystem providing additional information, which is capable of providingand receiving the additional information on the respective contentsthrough the network, and a reproduction apparatus therefor are provided.Accordingly, the user can receive the most recent additional informationwith respect to the specific contents.

[0042] Although a few preferred embodiments of the present inventionhave been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilledin the art that changes may be made in this embodiment without departingfrom the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which isdefined in the claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A reproduction apparatus to reproduce contentsfrom a storage medium and to access a server system that providesadditional information, comprising: an identifier generator to generatean identifier of one of the contents to be reproduced; a networkconnector; and a controller to store the identifier, and to transmit theidentifier to the server system through said network connector, and toreceive additional information corresponding to the transmittedidentifier from the server system through said network connector.
 2. Theapparatus of claim 1, further comprising a reading unit to read the onecontent from the storage medium on which the contents are stored,wherein said identifier generator receives the identifier read from thestorage medium by said reading unit and provides the read identifier tosaid controller.
 3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the identifiercomprises an International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) recorded onthe storage medium.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said controllerfurther comprises a browser to transmit the identifier to a serverinstalled in the server system, to receive the corresponding additionalinformation provided from the server, and to display the correspondingadditional information.
 5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the browserstores the identifier in a Cookie file in said controller, and transmitsthe Cookie file to the server.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1, furthercomprising: a reading unit to read the contents from the storage mediumon which the contents are stored; and a reproducer to reproduce thecontents read by said reading unit.
 7. The apparatus of claim 6, whereinsaid reproducer further comprises a decoder to decode the read contents.8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein: said contents comprises audioand/or video data, and said reproducer further comprises: a speaker toreproduce the audio data output from the decoder and to deliver soundfrom the audio data, and a display apparatus to receive the video dataoutput from the decoder and to display images from the video data.
 9. Aserver system to provide additional information to a reproducingapparatus used to reproduce contents from a storage medium, comprising:an additional information database to store the additional informationcorresponding to the contents; and a server to receive an identifierwith respect to one of the contents from the reproduction apparatus, theidentifier having been stored on the reproduction apparatus, to receivethe additional information corresponding to the identifier from saidadditional information data base, and to transmit the correspondingadditional information to the reproduction apparatus.
 10. The serversystem of claim 9, wherein: the identifier comprises an InternationalStandard Recording Code (ISRC), and said server receives the ISRCcorresponding to the one content from the reproduction apparatus,receives the additional information mapped to the ISRC from saidadditional information data base, and transmits the mapped additionalinformation to the reproduction apparatus.
 11. A system for providingadditional information corresponding to contents being reproduced from astorage medium, comprising: a reproduction apparatus to reproduce one ofthe contents stored on the storage medium, comprising an identifiergenerator to generate an identifier of one of the contents to bereproduced, a network connector, and a controller to store and transmitthe generated identifier through said network connector, to receive theadditional information corresponding to the transmitted identifierthrough said network connector, and to display the received additionalinformation; and a system server comprising an additional informationdatabase to store the additional information corresponding to thecontents, and a server to receive the transmitted identifier withrespect to the one content from said reproduction apparatus, to receivethe additional information corresponding to the transmitted identifierfrom said additional information data base, and to transmit thecorresponding additional information to said reproduction apparatus. 12.The system of claim 11, wherein: the identifier comprises anInternational Standard Recording Code (ISRC), and said server receivesthe ISRC corresponding to the one content from said reproductionapparatus as the identifier, receives the additional information mappedto the ISRC from said additional information data base, and transmitsthe mapped additional information to said reproduction apparatus. 13.The system of claim 12, wherein said reproduction apparatus furthercomprises a reading unit to read data from the storage medium on whichthe contents are stored, and said identifier generator receives the ISRCread from the storage medium and provides the ISRC to said controller.14. The system of claim 13, wherein said controller further includes abrowser to transmit the identifier to said server, to receive theadditional information provided from said server, and to display theadditional information.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the browserstores the identifier in a Cookie file, and transmits the Cookie file tosaid server.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein said reproductionapparatus further comprises: a reading unit to read the contents fromthe storage medium on which the contents are stored; and a reproducer toreproduce the contents read by said reading unit.
 17. The system ofclaim 16, wherein said reproducer further comprises a decoder to decodethe read contents.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein: said contentscomprises audio and/or video data, and said reproducer furthercomprises: a speaker to receive the audio data output from the decoderand to transmit sound from the audio data; and a displaying apparatus toreceive video data output from the decoder and to display images fromthe video data.
 19. The reproduction apparatus of claim 1, wherein theidentifier comprises ownership information corresponding to the onecontent stored on the storage medium, and each of the contentscorresponds to a different identifier.
 20. The reproduction apparatus ofclaim 19, wherein said controller stores the identifier in a Cookie fileresident in said controller, and in response to the server system beingaccessed by said controller, the server system accesses the Cookie fileto determine the corresponding additional information to be provided.21. The reproduction apparatus of claim 1, wherein the identifiercomprises ownership information corresponding to the one content storedin a header region of the one content stored on the storage medium, andeach of the contents corresponds to a different identifier.
 22. Thereproduction apparatus of claim 2, wherein said controller transmits theidentifier as said reading unit reads the corresponding one content. 23.The server system providing the additional information of claim 9,wherein the identifier comprises ownership information corresponding tothe one content stored on the storage medium, and each of the contentscorresponds to a different identifier.
 24. The server system providingthe additional information of claim 9, wherein the reproductionapparatus stores the identifier in a Cookie file resident on thereproduction apparatus, and said server accesses the Cookie file todetermine the corresponding additional information to be transmitted.25. The server system providing the additional information of claim 9,wherein: said additional information database comprises ownership rightsand content identification associated with corresponding additionalinformation, and the received identifier contains content identificationand ownership rights by which said server receives the correspondingadditional information from said additional information database. 26.The server system providing the additional information of claim 9,wherein: said additional information database further comprises uniformresource locators associated with respective identifiers, and saidserver receives and transmits one of the uniform resource locatorscorresponding to the received identifier.
 27. The server systemproviding the additional information of claim 26, wherein: saidadditional information database further comprises uniform resourcelocators associated with respective identifiers, and said serverreceives and transmits one of the uniform resource locatorscorresponding to the received identifier.
 28. A method of method ofaccessing additional information corresponding to contents to bereproduced, comprising: storing an identifier corresponding to one ofthe contents to be reproduced, the contents being previously stored on astorage medium; requesting additional information corresponding to theone content using the stored identifier; and receiving the correspondingadditional information.
 29. The method of claim 28, further comprisingreproducing the one content, wherein the additional information isrequested during said reproducing the one content from the storagemedium.
 30. The method of claim 29, further comprising detecting theownership rights associated with the one content, and wherein saidrequesting the additional information comprises transmitting the storedownership rights associated with the one content.
 31. The method ofclaim 30, wherein the identifier comprises an International StandardRecording Code (ISRC) containing the ownership rights associated withthe one content, and said requesting the additional informationcomprises transmitting the ISRC associated with the one content.
 32. Themethod of claim 30, further comprising reading the identifier from thestorage medium; and wherein said storing the identifier comprisesstoring the identifier other than on the storage medium; said requestingthe additional information comprises transmitting the stored identifierover a network to a server having a database; and said receiving theadditional information comprises receiving the additional informationcorresponding to the stored identifier from the database.
 33. The methodof claim 32, wherein: said storing the identifier further comprisesstoring the identifier on a first computer in the form of a Cookie file;and said requesting the additional information comprises transmittingthe Cookie file over the network to the server having the database. 34.A computer readable medium encoded with processing instructions forimplementing a method of accessing additional information correspondingto contents to be reproduced performed by a computer, the methodcomprising: storing an identifier corresponding to one of the contentsto be reproduced, the contents being previously stored on a storagemedium; requesting additional information corresponding to the onecontent using the stored identifier; and receiving the correspondingadditional information.
 35. The computer readable medium of claim 34,further comprising reproducing the one content, wherein the additionalinformation is requested during said reproducing the one content fromthe storage medium.
 36. The computer readable medium of claim 34,wherein said storing the identifier comprises detecting and storing theownership rights associated with the one content, and said requestingthe additional information comprises transmitting the stored ownershiprights associated with the one content.
 37. The computer readable mediumof claim 34, wherein the identifier comprises an International StandardRecording Code (ISRC) containing the ownership rights associated withthe one content, and said requesting the additional informationcomprises transmitting the ISRC associated with the one content.
 38. Thecomputer readable medium of claim 34, wherein: said storing theidentifier comprises reading the identifier from the storage medium, andstoring the identifier other than on the storage medium; said requestingthe additional information comprises transmitting the stored identifierover a network to a server having a database; and said receiving theadditional information comprises receiving the additional informationcorresponding to the stored identifier from the database.
 39. Thecomputer readable medium of claim 38, wherein: said storing theidentifier further comprises storing the identifier on a first computerin the form of a Cookie file; and said requesting the additionalinformation comprises transmitting the Cookie file over the network tothe server having the database.
 40. A method of providing additionalinformation corresponding to contents stored on a storage medium read bya reproducing apparatus, comprising: receiving an identifiercorresponding to one of the contents to be reproduced by thereproduction apparatus, the identifier having been read from the storagemedium and stored on the reproduction apparatus; accessing an additionalinformation database on which additional information corresponding tothe contents are stored; retrieving from the additional informationdatabase one of the additional information corresponding to the receivedidentifier; and providing to the reproducing apparatus the oneadditional information.
 41. The method of claim 40, wherein theidentifier comprises an International Standard Recording Code (ISRC)recorded on the storage medium on which the one content is recorded andstored on the reproduction apparatus, said retrieving the one additionalinformation comprises retrieving the additional information mapped tothe ISRC from the additional information data base, and said providingthe one additional information comprises transmitting the mappedadditional information to the reproduction apparatus.
 42. The method ofclaim 40, wherein said receiving the identifier comprises receiving aCookie file stored on the reproduction apparatus, the Cookie filecomprising the identifier.
 43. The method of claim 40, wherein saidreceiving the identifier comprises receiving a Cookie file stored on thereproduction apparatus, the Cookie file comprising the identifier. 44.The method of claim 40, further comprising storing additionalinformation corresponding to an identifier generated by the reproducingapparatus from header information of the one content.